Do you grow sweet potatoes in your garden? Let us know in the comments below! TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 When To Harvest Sweet Potatoes 1:21 Removing And Mulching Sweet Potato Vines 2:22 Harvesting Sweet Potatoes From My Raised Bed Garden 3:27 My Sweet Potato Harvest 4:40 My #1 Tip When Growing Sweet Potatoes 6:03 Restoring The Sweet Potato Garden Bed 6:32 How To Cure Sweet Potatoes: 2 Step 10:47 My Revolutionary Method For Curing Sweet Potatoes 11:59 How To Set Up The Seedling Heat Mat Thermostat 14:03 5 Days Into the Warm Sweet Potato Curing Process 14:56 The Cool Sweet Potato Curing Process 16:26 Adventures With Dale
Thks for showing the harvesting part. I watched where you were developing the slips and planting. Most gardening videos don't show the harvest part. Now I know why sweet potatoes cost more than white potatoes.
Millennial Gardener- I live in Japan and we grow sweet potatoes as our main cash crop. You mentioned wanting to fertilize next year for a larger crop. Our rule of thumb here is to absolutely never fertilize our sweet potatoes and to grow them in the worst possible soil. You don't want any energy going into leaf production. Adding phosphate won't help produce larger potatoes. Make sure you have a large and very deep soil bed-that's the key. We grow ours in long mounds and each mound is at least 50cm deep. Looking at your soil bed in the video, it may not be deep enough. I would double the depth of it next year and see what happens.
They harvest in late summer when the weather is hot and humid, and spread the unwashed sweet potatoes in a single layer where there's airflow but no rain.
Incredible. But if it’s your practice to grow the potatoes in the worst possible soil, don’t the successive generations deplete the soil completely of nutrients? How can the next generation of potatoes thrive?
I cure my sweet potatoes in my greenhouse in a feedsack for 2 weeks, then just bring the feedsacks inside and put in the bottom of my pantry. I've had them stay good for over a year with this method. So easy.
Sweet potato vines and leaves are edible and taste wonderful. I use tender young shoots and leaves in salads and cooked as a side dish. The spent vines are also a good animal feed. Sweet potato “hay” can be bundled like regular hay. It will turn dark brown- black but they have not turned bad.
I was going to ask that. I used tops of brussel sprouts in the uk. They used to be sold on markets in the south but are discarded in the north for some reason. Its too hit where I live in Andalucia to grow them. I use the leaves off self sown borage and marguerites (chrysanthemum coronarium) which grow wild here and that I leave in early spring for bees and other insects. Also grape vine leaves are stuffed with seasoned rice and veg etc.
You're welcome! This is the only method I'll use from now on. It was so easy to cure all my sweet potatoes in a little 3 square foot place instead of dedicating a room to it!
I take my sweet potatoes out of the ground with dirt still on them. I put them in milk crates so air can circulate. I stack the milk crates to take up less space. No hoops to jump through. They’re in my hallway and I’m eating on them 10 months later with no signs of them going bad. I wash off dirt as I need one.
Great video! One tip I heard from a sweet potato farmer is to never let your potatoes reach a soil temp under 55 degrees in the beginning or end of the season. He would always harvest before a frost came. Apparently they will store longer if you harvest earlier and don’t let the leaves die. Also don’t store them for cold storage under 55 degrees.
Every guide - except one sweet potato farmer, apparently - shows better taste, size, and overall less loss, if harvesting later when leaves have died, then heat cure, then cooler temp cure.
Once again, you've convinced me to try something new. First, it was citrus. Now, it's sweet potatoes. Another terrific video. As an engineer, I love the processes you follow to gain knowledge. Well done! Thanks!!!
Thank you! I'm really happy to hear you're going to try something new! Sweet potatoes are incredibly easy to grow. Just keep a bottle of spinosad on hand for the caterpillar and moth outbreaks that usually happen in spring and fall. They're the only insect pests I've ever encountered.
@@TheMillennialGardener i like the humidity chambers cause I don’t have an oven. I have a rechargeable desktop humidifier can I use that or will that be too much humidity
This was my first year growing sweet potatoes. It was a huge success! Thanks to your curing process using seedling mat and the plastic storage container, in 15 days my sweet potatoes were cured perfectly! Thanks again!!
The heat mat with thermostat is so potentially useful, perhaps as a desiccator or even as an incubator for hatching eggs, then to keep the chicks warm. Also might be nice for warming up the bed before retiring. Brilliant video - had no idea that the sweet potatoes get sweeter if treated properly. Thanks so much for sharing.
Though I observe it in video after video, that engineering mind of yours astounds me. Moreover, I'm blown away by how much you plan to do and how much you get done, given that you have a full-time job. Your time management skills must be as great if not greater than your gardening skills. All of which attests to why I'm such a fan. I couldn't help noticing that Dale's first thought on going outside was neither the urge to pee nor the cold. His immediate action was to check to see if anything strange had entered or happened to his yard.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. I'm an engineer and a project manager, so my time management skills are probably above average, but it also helps that I work from home and don't have kids, so it allows me to be more selfish with my time. If you have a commute and children, you simply don't have that luxury, and I understand that fully. Because I don't have kids, I fill my free time with this, because I genuinely enjoy it. If I didn't love doing this, it would be mentally and physically debilitating, because it's completely exhausting. It's truly an 80-100 hour a week commitment between both jobs, so you have to like it to press on. I'm lucky enough that as tiring as this is, it's also very relaxing and therapeutic. Many people are not fortunate enough to have a job that they love, so it becomes even more important to find a hobby or a lifestyle that you love as some type of therapy. Gardening is great because it fulfills both our need for sunshine, fresh air and exercise, but it's also like meditation for the mind. It's not for everyone, but it's important we all take the time to search for something we love to do.
@@TheMillennialGardener I agree completely with that last statement: gardening has been for me for many years my Zen. Though it can be physically demanding and exhausting at times, it's a fulfilling kind of exhaustion and I am at peace when I'm doing it.
@@TheMillennialGardener So true on every point. I was a flight attendant until 2019 because of a work related head injury - severe TBI. I don't think I'm able to go back because the dizziness comes and goes without warning. So after all my surgeries and therapies to learn how to think, walk, talk, sleep again I thought being outside in my yard would be so therapeutic. It was. I only have cats, not kids or significant other. Then this winter I had the bright idea to start my first garden. OMG. HOURS and hours of learning so many different ways to get started and 'how to'. I'm doing containers. A LOT of them. Now it's overwhelming so I'm trying to focus on getting my favorites planted. Mistake: don't just throw a few potatoes small red potatoes into a grow bag! So I'm now separating them into their own bag. I have 31 plants! 😲 Your channel is at the TOP of my learning to grow channels and I just found you recently. Your mind works similar to mine in being specific and methodical and efficient so I'm loving your teachings! And for you to have 2 jobs, so to speak, AND have time to grow, teach, film, and edit is absolutely impressive. 💯 So thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are refreshing and inspiring. And I love the Dale clips 😉
Yes, definitely therapeutic. Has helped with job stress, relationship struggles, loss and grief. Don't know where I'd be without my Lord, family/friends and my garden!
I found your video when I needed it most, that is after harvesting for the first time ever almost 25 lbs of sweet potatoes in zone 5b in south east of Quebec. Having started this as an experiment, I am super happy with the result and I’ve started 2 days ago to cure them using your method and so far it works great! Thank you so much!
Dis you have the lids off center as he stated? If not, it may be that there was not enough air circulation. I couldn't get my temps up over 78 as well. Plus my controller my controller must be faulty as the mats won't heat at all when plugged into it. I'm sending it back and getting a different one.
@@DawnaRo yes, I do off center the lid from time to time for a couple of hours and clean the moisture gathered under the lid. I also have to check on the thermostat from time to time, for ex. it shows 83F and it doesn’t heat although is set up at 85F. overall , it still works as a method … with a bit of surveillance ;)
Hi, I watched this video last year and again this month to review how to harvest and cure my sweet potatoes. I harvested 77 pounds of beautiful purple sweet potatoes that I grew from the sprouts of one potato from last year's harvest! I was so excited! So I followed your protocol and example of putting the potatoes into a tote, setting it on my seed started heat mat with the temp controller attached. I also put in the 2 quart jar of water and covered with the lid. It took a couple days to get the temp up to 77 using one mat, so I added a second mat and got the temp up to 83.6 consistently. However, there was so much moisture in the tote that I found several potatoes were starting to grow mold. So I took out the jar of water and dried off the few wet potatoes and closed the lid back up. Tonight there is still a lot of water on the inside of the lid and the potatoes, even with the jar of water removed, and new mold starting to grow. What am I doing wrong? How can I better control the moisture to prevent the mold from growing? They have only been in the tote since last Thursday, 11/2 and I don't want to lose them. I look forward to hearing from you.
Well@@fazerchik since I wrote my comment, I have been adjusting the lid on my tote to let some of the moisture out but keep the heat in. I've noticed this evening that the temp is remaining constant at 84.3-7 and the potatoes are not moist to wet anymore But their skins have turned brown and are dry. So I think this is where they are supposed to be from what he says? The nicks and gouges from harvesting have healed up and there is no more indication of mold, for which I am deeply grateful. I'll let them go another week to finish curing then go from there. Hope this helps.
Yes,the Ipomeas (water spinach and sweet potato) are persistent little things. They are sturdy AF. If you are planting in containers,planting in a sack is a good idea, just cut it open afterwards. The purple sweet potatoes are absolutely delicious when steamed and dehydrated. They are very popular in Korea as a snack known as goguma malaenggi.
This is how I cure my sweet potatoes too except for some reason it never occurred to me to add a heat mat with thermostat! I have heat mats for seed starting, I just need to get a thermostat. This is why I love your channel… you have great ideas. I will definitely be trying this next year since this years sweet potatoes are cured and mostly eaten lol Also… Lynyrd Skynyrd 🤘🤘
Thank you. I didn't want to dedicate my oven again to curing my sweet potatoes, and there's no way I'm converting a whole room into some type of hot box like I've seen some folks do, so I figured out a way without spending a dime simply reusing all the stuff I already have. Worked like a charm! The potatoes I've eaten so far were fantastic, so I know the method works. FREEEEEEEEEE BIIIIIIIIIIIIRD!
try adding a bag or 2 of sand in with your soil mix where i live the local indigenous people used this trick to grow more and increase size has to do with softening the ground
Saw this video last year too late to try with my harvest. So I tried it this year, and it worked perfectly. Today was the last day of curing, but I had an AMAZING baked sweet potato a couple days ago. Thanks for the tip.
Thank you , excellent show , thats the deal breaker about sweet potatoes , that curing process but I think you’re on to it , thanks for those little details like the carpet under the heat mat , cheers , I really like your show .
My Beauregard tubers come out large, even massive, with standard-sizes accompanying them; only compost for fertilizer. Your soil depth is one-third what my depth is and I space at two feet. Maybe they need more depth as well as more spacing. I'm going to try the Japanese one next year. Thanks for the suggestion. I do rotate my sweet potatoes and I don't have the root problem because I have the vines grow up a tall, sturdy circular "tomato cage", six plants around the outside and one in the center. They grow up and then down and sometimes out along the ground a little if I let them; they are on top of pine straw and they don't readily root through that, though they can. If I don't harvest them well before frost I find they tend to split in the ground, inviting bugs to feast. I just bring them into my garage in October to harden the skin for 24 hours, then wash them off, towel dry them and place them on my kitchen counter for a week or two. Then they go into a crate on the floor of the laundry room and we are still eating them in the spring.
You make the best videos. Probably now my favorite gardening guy. You explain the process from beginning to end and as a beginner gardener, I need to see all the steps.
My garage is right now at 40F, good thing I am only growing garlic at this time, and I will grow sweet potatoes next year and with all this information I know I will succeed. Thank you
This reminded me when I was in the Philippines. As grade schoolers, we were taught as kids on how to grow food! So each class will have a garden that we tend to every day. We grow sweet potatoes as they grow like weeds and delicious. While we are tending our garden, we often would pull a young sweet potato and eat it off the ground LOL they are so sweet and delicious!!!
That is a good class to put in an education system. Our kids think food comes from a restaurant and all of our people end up obese and with chronic diseases in my country.
Your curing solution is so good. Last year I had a similar but far more complicated idea. I put a Crock-Pot inside a tote to heat up water provide both the heat and the humidity. I used the transmitter of an indoor outdoor thermometer in the tote to measure the temperature and humidity. However, maintaining a narrow range of temperature and humidity was another story. I experimented - don't laugh - using a timer with 15-minute increments, fine tuning on and off sequences to maintain a reasonable range of temperature and humidity. It took forever. Overall it worked but there were some sweet potatoes partly cooked near the top. Since that I happened to have purchased a heat mat to start peppers. Your solution is just so much more elegant in its simplicity. Thank you!
I just learned a bunch LOL I had no clue you had to cure them with heat and coolness. And your heat mat idea with the thermostat is awesome thank you for teaching me a little bit more about sweet potatoes because I do like them
You just "cured" me of wanting to plant sweet potatoes. So much work. Never liked any sweet veg but thought it would be a continuous crop if kept in the soil and therefore good for the "coming famine" if you could pick them as needed. So if you don't cure them, then they won't be sweet? But then will that make them lack nutrients?
I live in Tennessee and after binge watching all these videos I’m going to try this I usually buy my sweet potatoes at the flea market Thank you again for the idea of curing these potatoes I had no idea
If it makes you feel better, the curing process is really optional. I have found very little difference in taste between cured and uncured sweet potatoes, though curing probably does benefit the storage life. It may be easier to buy them now, but knowing how to grow them (which is ridiculously easy) could be very handy when the chips are down. In the continental U.S., there is probably not a better survival food.
I have mine in buckets because of this video. Only the ones I bring inside will survive the winter. I have a piece of vine saved inside for next year, waiting for first frost to kill the plants outside before I harvest my potatoes. Sweet potatoes were flowering before it got too cold... they started dying back so I'm hoping this is them putting all the energy and water into the potatoes in this last week of warm weather.
I would highly recommend putting metal racks in the bottom of the tote to keep the sweet potatoes off the bottom of the bin. I am pretty sure they started cooking. We just had to toss half the harvest because they started cooking and got soft and oozing some pink stuff at the end of the 14 day curing process.
This happened to us, too. I'm gonna try adding some cooling racks next year. I also noticed it took at least 5 days to get up to the right temperature, so we left them in a couple extra days. Maybe next year I'll try keeping it in a warmer spot or pre-warming the tub and getting them out sooner. Pleae let us know if you find a good fix.
I love this method because I don't have much of those 3 things; time, space, or energy. The curing process would have stopped me from growing sweet potatoes if it were not for your method. Thank you for figuring it out AND for posting the links for the materials. I am looking forward to following your procedures from start to finish. I got a very late start, but I am growing slips right now to be ready for spring. I will see if I can keep them alive until then.
Thank you for this video - or I should say class - on how to properly cure sweet potatoes. I appreciate the idea of using the heat mat and the mason jar, it makes the whole process easy and affordable.
I like knowing how to cure the sweet potatoes and how to use the extra vines. Do you ever eat the vines? We eat sweet potato vines almost every week, in stir fry and also in place of greens which makes it a super incredible crop.
Thank you so much. I just harvested my sweet potatoes ( I’m in Australia) and it is nearly winter with morning frosts so I was wondering how I was going to cure them 👍🏻problem solved, they are now all tucked up in the box with the heat mat and thermostat for 10 days. A great video 👌🏻
Interesting info. I’ve never done the heat /humidity part but my sweet potatoes store over a year. I also never have a problem with the roots wanting to grow new potatoes. I grow them somewhere different every year.
I would recommend you try the warm cure. A lot of people skip it, because they think it's a pain to do or don't know about the step, but it makes the sweet potatoes sweeter and better. I just ate 2 of them last night, and they were both great. The Murasaki's were incredible.
I live In the Pacific Northwest I've tried to grow them I'm going to try one more time using your method keeping my fingers crossed. method keeping my fingers crossed.
After watching your wonderful videos on Sweet Potatoes I thought I would pass on another use for them. We wash them and then slice them as thin as we can, try for about 3/16" thick. Then soak them in warm water for about 15 minutes before putting them in a dehydrator. They come out looking like potato chips but there is no oil involved and the soaking is supposed to help with the starch. They make a good snack and last a long time if they are dried hard and kept in an airtight container. I like things spicey so I put some red chili powder on them after taking them out of the water before putting them on the trays. Thank you for the great videos on gardening. Give Dale a hug for us too.
I love how your videos are broken down by timeline and subject. I saw this video in it's entirety but needed to go back to how you separate the slips by identifying root nodes, etc. Thanks for making them all so comprehensive. So far so good. Just planted some slips last evening. 92F and crazy humid with evening downpours from now till Halloween. Should be perfect.
Thank you. It's a lot of effort to tag the timestamps, but it's worth it since it makes it so much easier to navigate. Sweet potatoes are one of the few plants that thrive in extreme humidity and rain, so they'll be doing great while everything else is suffering 😅
This is fantastic. I grew sweet potatoes for the first time after watching your video on how to grow the starts. I wasn’t sure when to harvest so came back to your channel to learn. Now I can get ready for when I do harvest them.
We have a lot of varieties in the Philippines. That violet is common in our country. But the sweetest potato we have is called minamon. Its color is white orange. We have also red skin with white inner part, and we have red skin that is yellow inside. We also have peach color with yellow inside. We have light red skin with orange inside sweet potato. We have also potato that is yellow green leaves. We have potato that have tiny leaves, we called it kinarawsi. Sweet potato leaves can be eaten by puting them into soup, cook with our with onion and garlic and seasoning. RED LEAVES is curr for low blood people.
This is my first time with sweet potatoes and they are amazing. They LOVE the Texas heat. The greens are good eats while I wait for the tubers. Next year I will grow them on trellises for shade as well.
Your warm cure method is a game changer for me and is so simple to implement successfully! My only thought/suggestion is would it be better to use a solid container (like a Rubbermaid tote) instead of clear to prevent light exposure? But I'm struggling with the long term cool storage. I harvested my potatoes back in September because I wanted them to be ready for Thanksgiving. But my garage is too well insulated and with the warm weather we've had this fall, even my shed is too warm; I don't have a basement. I wrapped them in newspaper and put them on the bare floor of my pantry but they've already started sprouting. Suggestions for keeping them cool?
What is your local soil temp? We use burial to keep things unfrozen here, but it also can be cooler than warm days. This is less true in the fall when seasonal lag has the ground near max temps.
My laying hens go crazy for sweet potato vines and leaves. I try to catch the sweet spot between vines starting to die off and being frostburnt or dry/dead so they can make eggs from that garden waste. Here in north Texas, my vines have only had one light kiss of freezing temps, so they are still going strong. I actually put about half of my vines into the chicken run a couple of days ago, to get a little of a head start, and because some of them had been pretty heavily wind damaged in the past few weeks. I grow my sweet potatoes in designated enclosed planters made from 6 foot by three foot (and 3 foot deep) fiberglass commercial coolers. I try to keep an eye on the vines to reduce them rooting outside their assigned spaces. I tried out using old 50 pound feed bags as grow bags this year. I think it went well, and I did get some really nice results. I turned the bags inside out (to look better/all white) and cut some drainage holes all along them, before filling 3/4 full with good loose soil mix. I rolled the tops down a few inches to help with stability. They actually looked pretty good lined up along the edge of the back garden. I think I'll add a little trellis next year, to help keep the vines from rooting into the surrounding area. I'm also going to try the bags horizontally, to give a shallower but larger surface area. I cure my root vegetables in my indoor garden room, in nets hung off supports. I place brown paper sacks upside down but open on the bottoms to block light and dust.
I am so overwhelmed right now! I put a sweet potato into water so that my preschool class could see it sprout. Then I decided to plant it into a raised container. It's growing beautifully, BUT I had no idea that there was a curing process. I have no idea how I'm going to get that done at the school. Thanks for this video. I need to figure something out.
This is great! Ty so much. Sweet potatoes are my staple dinner food. I have grown them once, I skipped gardening for a few years. Now that I know I can save them for a longer period I will be planting a good amount this year, ty!!
You're welcome! Sweet potatoes have one of the longest storage lifespans of any food if you have the right storage conditions. They can last for 6 months.
This popped up in my feed with perfect timing! I'm gonna be harvesting my sweet potatoes in about 3 weeks. Luckily I already have all of these things. I need my oven so this is perfect for me and as I said, I already have all of the items needed! Great way to cure them! Thanks for the idea! I was wondering how people do it when its colder outside.
This worked beautifully for me last year. It makes everything so incredibly easy and convenient, and it takes up virtually no space. Some people dedicate entire rooms to their sweet potatoes. It's nice to know it can be done in a big tub.
I mean this is great idea if you feel you have to go through all of that. I only laid mine on newspaper on the floor of my basement and stored them there. I waited 2 weeks then used them as needed. They lasted all winter. Super sweet and delicious. I also grew slips for this year. Not sure if this step is really all that necessary. 🤔
Thank you. I will use that method. I had planned on using a closet with a space heater, and humidifier. BTW, I have the same carpet, baseboard, and wall color in my home.
I am about To harvest my Japanese sweet potatoes and was stressing about how to cure them in November. Thank you for providing me a solution! Fabulous video!
I feel smart as I do it the same way but in a cooler and small heat mat inside. Just don't let the tubers contact the mat or it slow cooks them. Do you ever wash the tubers? Mine started going bad in March. I had a lot! Just finished the last ones and just about to plant the next slips. Good videos keep em coming!
I do not wash the tubers. My opinion on this is that you should not wash them prior to use, because if you tear the skin, they will not last as long. This is especially important prior to curing, because the skin is especially delicate when ultra fresh. I simply tap them against my hand to knock most of the dirt off, but I don't formally wash them til I am going to peel them. Storing them in November, I noticed that some will start softening come spring. I actually still have some left, though, so some are going on 7 months looking pretty good. The Beauregard didn't last NEARLY as long as the Murasaki. The Murasaki's are beasts and store for incredible lengths of time. I'm done growing Beauregard, because they're too common for cheap in the grocery stores and, in my opinion, inferior in flavor and don't store as well, but to each their own.
Excellent video! I am growing sweet potatoes for the first time this year and I knew absolutely zero of this information. I feel armed and ready now! Thank you!
I ordered a set of 4 105qt Sterilite totes to put our sweet potato harvest in, and we only ended up with enough to fill up one of the totes not even 1/4th of the way full LOL. Yes, I already have the triple super phosphate ready for next season, thanks to a half off sale at the local Ace Hardware LOL
Those 105qt containers are perfect for rooting fig cuttings. If you have a spare one, that’s what I recommend! I use the same heat mat and thermostat. 77F is the perfect temp for rooting figs!
Thanks! We will be harvesting our sweet potatoes in about 2 weeks. I will be curing them using your method, as I don't have a green house. Your instructions are, as always, succinct and helpful.
Is it worth saving the leaves for next year or just starting them from the potatoes? I got mine from a seed company and the slips took a long time to root. I was thinking of potting some of the plants and keeping them inside for the winter. I am anxious to see how my raised bed did and I think i will wait till the leaves are brown as we are finally getting the rain they probably will benefit from.
Genius idea, I'll follow your steps to the tee, it'll be my first time doing sweet potato, curing is definitely a mandatory process.. have you ever used hay as a growing medium?(Ruth Stout method)
Most hay has been sprayed to kill weeds in the field, it can cause deformity in your plants (leaf curling)and deformed vegetables and be dangerous to your health. Aged Free range chicken manure and rabbit manure is a better choice. Ag depts worldwide are warning against using cow and horse manure too for this reason.
Thanks. We just dug out first bed & it was a great harvest! We have one more full bed but we are waiting till the last second in hopes that we will get lots more larger ones. So exciting! & thanks for the tip on curing - most make curing seem stressful like if you don’t do it perfectly then it will be a failed harvest. Unfortunately I can’t fully do this method this year but I will probably try it next year bc it’s super smart!
I’m really hoping you’ll see this. I live in zone 8b and am embarking on growing lots of citrus and avocado trees in pots. I would love to know how you create easy transportation for your 15 gallon pots. Do you have any scooters or other mobility devices you sit them on for easy transport during the winter? I appreciate any guidance you have! Or better yet, would love to see a video on it.
I haven't grown my sweet potatoes yet, and I never cured them, so this helps a lot. I am in Minnesota, so I was wondering of a good way to cure them. Thanks for the help.
I harvest mine after the first frost and then drive around with them in boxes in the back of my car for a few weeks. They get heated up in my car when my car gets hot in the sun. I haven't had any problems doing it this way. I do Crack my windows slightly.
Thank you so much for this great video because I am just starting to grow my first sweet potatoes so this is very helpful 🙏🏽 so thanks again for sharing 🥳🫶🏾
Wow ! I didn’t know you should keep them in the same location. I keep mine in the same location because that’s where they can grow big and not shade out other plants or invade other plants space. Ha, I was doing it right and didn’t know it. Pretty cool.
He way waaay overspoke any danger of Sweet potatoes overtaking things. I live in deep south US and have grown sweet potatoes most of my 72 years and I have never once had a problem with them coming back. I wouldn't be concerned with it.
Question! If I cure my sweet potatoes can I keep them in the cool curing location for long-term storage as well? Or is there a specific way to store them to avoid "over curing"? (If that is a thing.)
Sweet potatoes should be kept in a cool, dry place for maximum life. Where you perform the cure, assuming it's in that 55-60 degree range or so, is perfect for long-term storage. They'll last months there as long as they don't get light exposure. Warm + light will cause them to sprout vines and get soft hollow. That's what you want to do when you want to grow new slips, but it's not what you want to do when you want to eat them.
I have an urgent question, I just harvested my sweet potatoes yesterday and when I woke up this morning the container lid was dripping with moisture onto the potatoes, even though I cocked my lid to the side probably even more than you did here. There is a A LOT of condensation built up under the lid and along the sides of the container. Is this too much humidity and moisture? I’ve done exactly as you have and the temperature on the thermostat is correct. Should I take the water jar out for a bit? Or is it okay that the potatoes get a little damp? I would’ve thought this might encourage rot but I don’t know. Please help! Thank you!
@@sophiesoulsister2222 hey, no I never got an answer back. I ended up taking out the jar of water because it was evidently already humid in the air, and putting it back in after a few days once the natural humidity in the air died down. I also had to take the potatoes out and get a cloth to get rid of the excess moisture, I think if left it then maybe rot would have formed. I have eaten all but one of my sweet potatoes since then, they turned out great! A few had some mould on the skin but once peeled off the inside was fine.
Do you grow sweet potatoes in your garden? Let us know in the comments below! TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 When To Harvest Sweet Potatoes
1:21 Removing And Mulching Sweet Potato Vines
2:22 Harvesting Sweet Potatoes From My Raised Bed Garden
3:27 My Sweet Potato Harvest
4:40 My #1 Tip When Growing Sweet Potatoes
6:03 Restoring The Sweet Potato Garden Bed
6:32 How To Cure Sweet Potatoes: 2 Step
10:47 My Revolutionary Method For Curing Sweet Potatoes
11:59 How To Set Up The Seedling Heat Mat Thermostat
14:03 5 Days Into the Warm Sweet Potato Curing Process
14:56 The Cool Sweet Potato Curing Process
16:26 Adventures With Dale
Fantastic!
Thks for showing the harvesting part. I watched where you were developing the slips and planting. Most gardening videos don't show the harvest part. Now I know why sweet potatoes cost more than white potatoes.
I tried watching it over a few times but I don't think I saw this- for the hot curing part- why do we need a clear container with a clear lid?
@@jesheezySunlight? Easy to identify?
@@jesheezy the light and the humidity will form when the sunlight warms the bin
Millennial Gardener- I live in Japan and we grow sweet potatoes as our main cash crop. You mentioned wanting to fertilize next year for a larger crop. Our rule of thumb here is to absolutely never fertilize our sweet potatoes and to grow them in the worst possible soil. You don't want any energy going into leaf production. Adding phosphate won't help produce larger potatoes. Make sure you have a large and very deep soil bed-that's the key. We grow ours in long mounds and each mound is at least 50cm deep. Looking at your soil bed in the video, it may not be deep enough. I would double the depth of it next year and see what happens.
How do you usually cure your sweet potato???
They harvest in late summer when the weather is hot and humid, and spread the unwashed sweet potatoes in a single layer where there's airflow but no rain.
Forgot to specify @maryannlane3772
Thank you.
Incredible. But if it’s your practice to grow the potatoes in the worst possible soil, don’t the successive generations deplete the soil completely of nutrients? How can the next generation of potatoes thrive?
Why NOT let them take over your whole yard!
Heaven!
Paradise!
Great ground cover.
FOOD!
Highest quality dark leafy greens vegetables 🙏♥️
I cure my sweet potatoes in my greenhouse in a feedsack for 2 weeks, then just bring the feedsacks inside and put in the bottom of my pantry. I've had them stay good for over a year with this method. So easy.
Great idea! I’ve been pondering how to cure and store. You’ve given me an answer! Thanks!
In the fall?
Sweet potato vines and leaves are edible and taste wonderful. I use tender young shoots and leaves in salads and cooked as a side dish. The spent vines are also a good animal feed. Sweet potato “hay” can be bundled like regular hay. It will turn dark brown- black but they have not turned bad.
i was about the write the same comment 🙂🙂
Well y’all are awesome. I grew up farming, potatoes were a staple and I didn’t know this about the vines and leaves.
@@musefamily7833 only sweet potatoes, regular “Irish” potatoes the vines and leaves are not edible.
Really? Eat vines and leaves? Never ever have I heard of that.
I was going to ask that. I used tops of brussel sprouts in the uk. They used to be sold on markets in the south but are discarded in the north for some reason. Its too hit where I live in Andalucia to grow them. I use the leaves off self sown borage and marguerites (chrysanthemum coronarium) which grow wild here and that I leave in early spring for bees and other insects.
Also grape vine leaves are stuffed with seasoned rice and veg etc.
Thank you! You're the first person to show a reasonable way of curing in a cold climate. Thank you so much!
You're welcome! This is the only method I'll use from now on. It was so easy to cure all my sweet potatoes in a little 3 square foot place instead of dedicating a room to it!
@TheMillennialGardener where are the Amazon links to the thermostat and heating pad? I didn't see them in your Amazon store link.
I take my sweet potatoes out of the ground with dirt still on them. I put them in milk crates so air can circulate. I stack the milk crates to take up less space. No hoops to jump through. They’re in my hallway and I’m eating on them 10 months later with no signs of them going bad. I wash off dirt as I need one.
Yup. No need to waste all this electricity.
Please more details, I have lots of milk crates lol. Inside or outside do you put the milk crates?
@@ramz1455 they’re in my hallway
@@davesrvchannel4717 That's it? not next to a heat source?
@@ramz1455 my hallway is 68-72 year around with low light. It wouldn’t hurt to cover top to cut down on light while leaving sides open for airflow.
Great video! One tip I heard from a sweet potato farmer is to never let your potatoes reach a soil temp under 55 degrees in the beginning or end of the season. He would always harvest before a frost came. Apparently they will store longer if you harvest earlier and don’t let the leaves die. Also don’t store them for cold storage under 55 degrees.
Every guide - except one sweet potato farmer, apparently - shows better taste, size, and overall less loss, if harvesting later when leaves have died, then heat cure, then cooler temp cure.
Once again, you've convinced me to try something new. First, it was citrus. Now, it's sweet potatoes. Another terrific video. As an engineer, I love the processes you follow to gain knowledge. Well done! Thanks!!!
Thank you! I'm really happy to hear you're going to try something new! Sweet potatoes are incredibly easy to grow. Just keep a bottle of spinosad on hand for the caterpillar and moth outbreaks that usually happen in spring and fall. They're the only insect pests I've ever encountered.
Dude! Even your longer videos are fantastic! I love your quick and concise delivery of information. Nicely done ✅
Thank you! This video came out a little longer than I wanted it to be, but I wanted it to be complete. Thanks for watching!
@@TheMillennialGardener i like the humidity chambers cause I don’t have an oven. I have a rechargeable desktop humidifier can I use that or will that be too much humidity
This was my first year growing sweet potatoes. It was a huge success! Thanks to your curing process using seedling mat and the plastic storage container, in 15 days my sweet potatoes were cured perfectly! Thanks again!!
I didn't know they would come back after harvest.
Thanks for including your dog in your video. You should include him more... 😊
The heat mat with thermostat is so potentially useful, perhaps as a desiccator or even as an incubator for hatching eggs, then to keep the chicks warm. Also might be nice for warming up the bed before retiring. Brilliant video - had no idea that the sweet potatoes get sweeter if treated properly. Thanks so much for sharing.
Though I observe it in video after video, that engineering mind of yours astounds me. Moreover, I'm blown away by how much you plan to do and how much you get done, given that you have a full-time job. Your time management skills must be as great if not greater than your gardening skills. All of which attests to why I'm such a fan. I couldn't help noticing that Dale's first thought on going outside was neither the urge to pee nor the cold. His immediate action was to check to see if anything strange had entered or happened to his yard.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. I'm an engineer and a project manager, so my time management skills are probably above average, but it also helps that I work from home and don't have kids, so it allows me to be more selfish with my time. If you have a commute and children, you simply don't have that luxury, and I understand that fully. Because I don't have kids, I fill my free time with this, because I genuinely enjoy it. If I didn't love doing this, it would be mentally and physically debilitating, because it's completely exhausting. It's truly an 80-100 hour a week commitment between both jobs, so you have to like it to press on. I'm lucky enough that as tiring as this is, it's also very relaxing and therapeutic.
Many people are not fortunate enough to have a job that they love, so it becomes even more important to find a hobby or a lifestyle that you love as some type of therapy. Gardening is great because it fulfills both our need for sunshine, fresh air and exercise, but it's also like meditation for the mind. It's not for everyone, but it's important we all take the time to search for something we love to do.
@@TheMillennialGardener I agree completely with that last statement: gardening has been for me for many years my Zen. Though it can be physically demanding and exhausting at times, it's a fulfilling kind of exhaustion and I am at peace when I'm doing it.
@@TheMillennialGardener So true on every point. I was a flight attendant until 2019 because of a work related head injury - severe TBI. I don't think I'm able to go back because the dizziness comes and goes without warning.
So after all my surgeries and therapies to learn how to think, walk, talk, sleep again I thought being outside in my yard would be so therapeutic. It was. I only have cats, not kids or significant other. Then this winter I had the bright idea to start my first garden. OMG. HOURS and hours of learning so many different ways to get started and 'how to'. I'm doing containers. A LOT of them. Now it's overwhelming so I'm trying to focus on getting my favorites planted. Mistake: don't just throw a few potatoes small red potatoes into a grow bag! So I'm now separating them into their own bag. I have 31 plants! 😲
Your channel is at the TOP of my learning to grow channels and I just found you recently. Your mind works similar to mine in being specific and methodical and efficient so I'm loving your teachings! And for you to have 2 jobs, so to speak, AND have time to grow, teach, film, and edit is absolutely impressive. 💯 So thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are refreshing and inspiring. And I love the Dale clips 😉
Yes, definitely therapeutic. Has helped with job stress, relationship struggles, loss and grief. Don't know where I'd be without my Lord, family/friends and my garden!
I had a rescue dog that totally freaked up when i changed anything...she knew it immediately and warned me..
Thank you for converting measurements. It’s the little things that make a difference 🇦🇺👍
We eat our sweet potato greens. We also dry them to add to soups or grind to powder for supergreens .in protein shakes.
I found your video when I needed it most, that is after harvesting for the first time ever almost 25 lbs of sweet potatoes in zone 5b in south east of Quebec. Having started this as an experiment, I am super happy with the result and I’ve started 2 days ago to cure them using your method and so far it works great! Thank you so much!
Dis you have the lids off center as he stated? If not, it may be that there was not enough air circulation. I couldn't get my temps up over 78 as well. Plus my controller my controller must be faulty as the mats won't heat at all when plugged into it. I'm sending it back and getting a different one.
@@DawnaRo yes, I do off center the lid from time to time for a couple of hours and clean the moisture gathered under the lid. I also have to check on the thermostat from time to time, for ex. it shows 83F and it doesn’t heat although is set up at 85F. overall , it still works as a method … with a bit of surveillance ;)
Hi, I watched this video last year and again this month to review how to harvest and cure my sweet potatoes. I harvested 77 pounds of beautiful purple sweet potatoes that I grew from the sprouts of one potato from last year's harvest! I was so excited!
So I followed your protocol and example of putting the potatoes into a tote, setting it on my seed started heat mat with the temp controller attached. I also put in the 2 quart jar of water and covered with the lid. It took a couple days to get the temp up to 77 using one mat, so I added a second mat and got the temp up to 83.6 consistently. However, there was so much moisture in the tote that I found several potatoes were starting to grow mold. So I took out the jar of water and dried off the few wet potatoes and closed the lid back up.
Tonight there is still a lot of water on the inside of the lid and the potatoes, even with the jar of water removed, and new mold starting to grow. What am I doing wrong? How can I better control the moisture to prevent the mold from growing? They have only been in the tote since last Thursday, 11/2 and I don't want to lose them. I look forward to hearing from you.
I am in the same boat. How do we stop / save our potatoes from mold???
Well@@fazerchik since I wrote my comment, I have been adjusting the lid on my tote to let some of the moisture out but keep the heat in. I've noticed this evening that the temp is remaining constant at 84.3-7 and the potatoes are not moist to wet anymore But their skins have turned brown and are dry. So I think this is where they are supposed to be from what he says? The nicks and gouges from harvesting have healed up and there is no more indication of mold, for which I am deeply grateful. I'll let them go another week to finish curing then go from there. Hope this helps.
Yes,the Ipomeas (water spinach and sweet potato) are persistent little things. They are sturdy AF. If you are planting in containers,planting in a sack is a good idea, just cut it open afterwards.
The purple sweet potatoes are absolutely delicious when steamed and dehydrated. They are very popular in Korea as a snack known as goguma malaenggi.
This is how I cure my sweet potatoes too except for some reason it never occurred to me to add a heat mat with thermostat! I have heat mats for seed starting, I just need to get a thermostat. This is why I love your channel… you have great ideas. I will definitely be trying this next year since this years sweet potatoes are cured and mostly eaten lol
Also… Lynyrd Skynyrd 🤘🤘
Thank you. I didn't want to dedicate my oven again to curing my sweet potatoes, and there's no way I'm converting a whole room into some type of hot box like I've seen some folks do, so I figured out a way without spending a dime simply reusing all the stuff I already have. Worked like a charm! The potatoes I've eaten so far were fantastic, so I know the method works. FREEEEEEEEEE BIIIIIIIIIIIIRD!
try adding a bag or 2 of sand in with your soil mix where i live the local indigenous people used this trick to grow more and increase size has to do with softening the ground
Thanks Bro it's really educational. This is my first time to hear about curing process on sweet potatos.
Saw this video last year too late to try with my harvest. So I tried it this year, and it worked perfectly. Today was the last day of curing, but I had an AMAZING baked sweet potato a couple days ago. Thanks for the tip.
Outstanding! I'm glad you came back to the video. I'll have an update on this method within the next couple weeks. Glad it helped you.
Thank you , excellent show , thats the deal breaker about sweet potatoes , that curing process but I think you’re on to it , thanks for those little details like the carpet under the heat mat , cheers , I really like your show .
My Beauregard tubers come out large, even massive, with standard-sizes accompanying them; only compost for fertilizer. Your soil depth is one-third what my depth is and I space at two feet. Maybe they need more depth as well as more spacing. I'm going to try the Japanese one next year. Thanks for the suggestion.
I do rotate my sweet potatoes and I don't have the root problem because I have the vines grow up a tall, sturdy circular "tomato cage", six plants around the outside and one in the center. They grow up and then down and sometimes out along the ground a little if I let them; they are on top of pine straw and they don't readily root through that, though they can. If I don't harvest them well before frost I find they tend to split in the ground, inviting bugs to feast. I just bring them into my garage in October to harden the skin for 24 hours, then wash them off, towel dry them and place them on my kitchen counter for a week or two. Then they go into a crate on the floor of the laundry room and we are still eating them in the spring.
How deep and size is your raised bed, please, and is Beauregard the only kind you plant? Your information is fantastic! Tia
You were born to do this. Presentation is spot on !
Thank you! I do love doing this. Nothing makes me happier than knowing these videos help motivate people to grow more food.
You make the best videos. Probably now my favorite gardening guy. You explain the process from beginning to end and as a beginner gardener, I need to see all the steps.
Thank you! I really appreciate that! I try my best to not leave any steps out without making these videos too long.
Thanks for explaining why about the carpet. Sometimes when I don't hear why I don't do it and then I fail.
Brilliant, thank you so much!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
My garage is right now at 40F, good thing I am only growing garlic at this time, and I will grow sweet potatoes next year and with all this information I know I will succeed. Thank you
I recommend trying sweet's next year. They're so easy and so much fun to grow!
This reminded me when I was in the Philippines. As grade schoolers, we were taught as kids on how to grow food! So each class will have a garden that we tend to every day. We grow sweet potatoes as they grow like weeds and delicious. While we are tending our garden, we often would pull a young sweet potato and eat it off the ground LOL they are so sweet and delicious!!!
That is a good class to put in an education system. Our kids think food comes from a restaurant and all of our people end up obese and with chronic diseases in my country.
Thanks! This was really helpful. Someone gifted me a slip, and now I know I am growing the purple sweet potatoes!
I’m glad it was helpful! I strongly recommend Murasaki and Okinawan sweet potatoes.
@@TheMillennialGardener can't wait to try!
Good information. Thank you! Dale looks adorable 😊👍
Thank you! Dale is *always* adorable 😅
Your curing solution is so good. Last year I had a similar but far more complicated idea. I put a Crock-Pot inside a tote to heat up water provide both the heat and the humidity. I used the transmitter of an indoor outdoor thermometer in the tote to measure the temperature and humidity. However, maintaining a narrow range of temperature and humidity was another story. I experimented - don't laugh - using a timer with 15-minute increments, fine tuning on and off sequences to maintain a reasonable range of temperature and humidity. It took forever. Overall it worked but there were some sweet potatoes partly cooked near the top. Since that I happened to have purchased a heat mat to start peppers. Your solution is just so much more elegant in its simplicity. Thank you!
Great idea with the heat mat! Thank you!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
I just learned a bunch LOL I had no clue you had to cure them with heat and coolness. And your heat mat idea with the thermostat is awesome thank you for teaching me a little bit more about sweet potatoes because I do like them
You just "cured" me of wanting to plant sweet potatoes. So much work. Never liked any sweet veg but thought it would be a continuous crop if kept in the soil and therefore good for the "coming famine" if you could pick them as needed. So if you don't cure them, then they won't be sweet? But then will that make them lack nutrients?
You could can them in a light syrup. That would make them sweeter. But you have to pressure can them.
If you believe there’s a coming famine, you should plant the east to grow potatoes and do the best you can to cure them. God bless!
I live in Tennessee and after binge watching all these videos I’m going to try this I usually buy my sweet potatoes at the flea market
Thank you again for the idea of curing these potatoes I had no idea
The most important thing I learned from this video is it’s a whole lot easier to just buy sweet potatoes than grow them.
but where's the fun in that ? :)
If it makes you feel better, the curing process is really optional. I have found very little difference in taste between cured and uncured sweet potatoes, though curing probably does benefit the storage life. It may be easier to buy them now, but knowing how to grow them (which is ridiculously easy) could be very handy when the chips are down. In the continental U.S., there is probably not a better survival food.
Some day you might not find sweet potatoes in the store. It's not wise to depend on others for your food supply.
😅
@Always one practical person. 😅thecarpentersdaughter4456
I have mine in buckets because of this video. Only the ones I bring inside will survive the winter.
I have a piece of vine saved inside for next year, waiting for first frost to kill the plants outside before I harvest my potatoes.
Sweet potatoes were flowering before it got too cold... they started dying back so I'm hoping this is them putting all the energy and water into the potatoes in this last week of warm weather.
Splendid!!!!!!
Thanks for watching!
I would highly recommend putting metal racks in the bottom of the tote to keep the sweet potatoes off the bottom of the bin. I am pretty sure they started cooking. We just had to toss half the harvest because they started cooking and got soft and oozing some pink stuff at the end of the 14 day curing process.
This happened to us, too. I'm gonna try adding some cooling racks next year. I also noticed it took at least 5 days to get up to the right temperature, so we left them in a couple extra days. Maybe next year I'll try keeping it in a warmer spot or pre-warming the tub and getting them out sooner. Pleae let us know if you find a good fix.
I love this method because I don't have much of those 3 things; time, space, or energy. The curing process would have stopped me from growing sweet potatoes if it were not for your method. Thank you for figuring it out AND for posting the links for the materials. I am looking forward to following your procedures from start to finish. I got a very late start, but I am growing slips right now to be ready for spring. I will see if I can keep them alive until then.
Thank you for this video - or I should say class - on how to properly cure sweet potatoes. I appreciate the idea of using the heat mat and the mason jar, it makes the whole process easy and affordable.
simple and affordable-brilliant! thanks.
Great idea, I will use it with my next harvest of sweet potatoes.
I like knowing how to cure the sweet potatoes and how to use the extra vines. Do you ever eat the vines? We eat sweet potato vines almost every week, in stir fry and also in place of greens which makes it a super incredible crop.
Thank you so much. I just harvested my sweet potatoes ( I’m in Australia) and it is nearly winter with morning frosts so I was wondering how I was going to cure them 👍🏻problem solved, they are now all tucked up in the box with the heat mat and thermostat for 10 days. A great video 👌🏻
Interesting info. I’ve never done the heat /humidity part but my sweet potatoes store over a year. I also never have a problem with the roots wanting to grow new potatoes. I grow them somewhere different every year.
I would recommend you try the warm cure. A lot of people skip it, because they think it's a pain to do or don't know about the step, but it makes the sweet potatoes sweeter and better. I just ate 2 of them last night, and they were both great. The Murasaki's were incredible.
We’ve never had sweet potatoes come back up from the roots the next year ever. I’m zone 3. Perhaps too cold in winter?
This strategy of curing is genius. Thanks MG!
Great idea with the seed mat! Do we have to rotate the tubers during the curing process to cure evenly and avoid rot and mold or it doesn't matter?
I live In the Pacific Northwest I've tried to grow them I'm going to try one more time using your method keeping my fingers crossed. method keeping my fingers crossed.
Thank you so much for the explicit explanations and letting us learn from you!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
This is such good information about an easier way to cure sweet potatoes...brilliant! Thanks so much for sharing :)
Excellent! I was wondering how I was going to cure my first ever backyard harvest of container-grown sweet potatoes here in Michigan. Thank you.
After watching your wonderful videos on Sweet Potatoes I thought I would pass on another use for them. We wash them and then slice them as thin as we can, try for about 3/16" thick. Then soak them in warm water for about 15 minutes before putting them in a dehydrator. They come out looking like potato chips but there is no oil involved and the soaking is supposed to help with the starch. They make a good snack and last a long time if they are dried hard and kept in an airtight container. I like things spicey so I put some red chili powder on them after taking them out of the water before putting them on the trays. Thank you for the great videos on gardening. Give Dale a hug for us too.
I love how your videos are broken down by timeline and subject. I saw this video in it's entirety but needed to go back to how you separate the slips by identifying root nodes, etc. Thanks for making them all so comprehensive.
So far so good. Just planted some slips last evening. 92F and crazy humid with evening downpours from now till Halloween. Should be perfect.
Thank you. It's a lot of effort to tag the timestamps, but it's worth it since it makes it so much easier to navigate. Sweet potatoes are one of the few plants that thrive in extreme humidity and rain, so they'll be doing great while everything else is suffering 😅
How was your harvest?
This is fantastic. I grew sweet potatoes for the first time after watching your video on how to grow the starts. I wasn’t sure when to harvest so came back to your channel to learn. Now I can get ready for when I do harvest them.
We have a lot of varieties in the Philippines. That violet is common in our country. But the sweetest potato we have is called minamon. Its color is white orange. We have also red skin with white inner part, and we have red skin that is yellow inside. We also have peach color with yellow inside. We have light red skin with orange inside sweet potato. We have also potato that is yellow green leaves. We have potato that have tiny leaves, we called it kinarawsi.
Sweet potato leaves can be eaten by puting them into soup, cook with our with onion and garlic and seasoning.
RED LEAVES is curr for low blood people.
Thank you for the low blood tip!
It is revolutionary! Thanks! So, I guess it's ok to stack them without worry of rot.
For the record, I'm still eating some of them. I actually used some for Easter a couple weeks ago. They cured well.
Absolutely Amazing!!! This is definitely a game changer. Thanks so much for sharing. ❤
You're welcome! It saved me so much time and space, and it was so easy!
This is my first time with sweet potatoes and they are amazing. They LOVE the Texas heat. The greens are good eats while I wait for the tubers. Next year I will grow them on trellises for shade as well.
Your warm cure method is a game changer for me and is so simple to implement successfully! My only thought/suggestion is would it be better to use a solid container (like a Rubbermaid tote) instead of clear to prevent light exposure? But I'm struggling with the long term cool storage. I harvested my potatoes back in September because I wanted them to be ready for Thanksgiving. But my garage is too well insulated and with the warm weather we've had this fall, even my shed is too warm; I don't have a basement. I wrapped them in newspaper and put them on the bare floor of my pantry but they've already started sprouting. Suggestions for keeping them cool?
Did you ever figure out what to do? I have a similar issue
What is your local soil temp? We use burial to keep things unfrozen here, but it also can be cooler than warm days. This is less true in the fall when seasonal lag has the ground near max temps.
Getting ready for my first sweet potato harvest and curing. Wish me luck! Yours look great.
My laying hens go crazy for sweet potato vines and leaves. I try to catch the sweet spot between vines starting to die off and being frostburnt or dry/dead so they can make eggs from that garden waste. Here in north Texas, my vines have only had one light kiss of freezing temps, so they are still going strong. I actually put about half of my vines into the chicken run a couple of days ago, to get a little of a head start, and because some of them had been pretty heavily wind damaged in the past few weeks.
I grow my sweet potatoes in designated enclosed planters made from 6 foot by three foot (and 3 foot deep) fiberglass commercial coolers. I try to keep an eye on the vines to reduce them rooting outside their assigned spaces. I tried out using old 50 pound feed bags as grow bags this year. I think it went well, and I did get some really nice results. I turned the bags inside out (to look better/all white) and cut some drainage holes all along them, before filling 3/4 full with good loose soil mix. I rolled the tops down a few inches to help with stability. They actually looked pretty good lined up along the edge of the back garden. I think I'll add a little trellis next year, to help keep the vines from rooting into the surrounding area. I'm also going to try the bags horizontally, to give a shallower but larger surface area.
I cure my root vegetables in my indoor garden room, in nets hung off supports. I place brown paper sacks upside down but open on the bottoms to block light and dust.
I am so overwhelmed right now! I put a sweet potato into water so that my preschool class could see it sprout. Then I decided to plant it into a raised container. It's growing beautifully, BUT I had no idea that there was a curing process. I have no idea how I'm going to get that done at the school. Thanks for this video. I need to figure something out.
Just curious... where did you find this method, or how many seasons did it take to experiment to find these temperatures and times? Great info !!
This is great! Ty so much. Sweet potatoes are my staple dinner food. I have grown them once, I skipped gardening for a few years. Now that I know I can save them for a longer period I will be planting a good amount this year, ty!!
You're welcome! Sweet potatoes have one of the longest storage lifespans of any food if you have the right storage conditions. They can last for 6 months.
This popped up in my feed with perfect timing! I'm gonna be harvesting my sweet potatoes in about 3 weeks. Luckily I already have all of these things. I need my oven so this is perfect for me and as I said, I already have all of the items needed! Great way to cure them! Thanks for the idea! I was wondering how people do it when its colder outside.
This worked beautifully for me last year. It makes everything so incredibly easy and convenient, and it takes up virtually no space. Some people dedicate entire rooms to their sweet potatoes. It's nice to know it can be done in a big tub.
👍🏾 vid i dont need to go to a hundred videos to peice them together. You give great info
I mean this is great idea if you feel you have to go through all of that. I only laid mine on newspaper on the floor of my basement and stored them there. I waited 2 weeks then used them as needed. They lasted all winter. Super sweet and delicious. I also grew slips for this year. Not sure if this step is really all that necessary. 🤔
Thank you. I will use that method. I had planned on using a closet with a space heater, and humidifier. BTW, I have the same carpet, baseboard, and wall color in my home.
I am about To harvest my Japanese sweet potatoes and was stressing about how to cure them in November. Thank you for providing me a solution! Fabulous video!
You're welcome!
Very useful and practical. Great idea, thanks!
You are welcome! Thanks for watching!
Thanks for all the new knowledge us links to go where needed. I love sweet potatoes!!
I feel smart as I do it the same way but in a cooler and small heat mat inside. Just don't let the tubers contact the mat or it slow cooks them. Do you ever wash the tubers? Mine started going bad in March. I had a lot! Just finished the last ones and just about to plant the next slips. Good videos keep em coming!
don't wash any tubers, regardless potatoes or sweet potatoes
I do not wash the tubers. My opinion on this is that you should not wash them prior to use, because if you tear the skin, they will not last as long. This is especially important prior to curing, because the skin is especially delicate when ultra fresh. I simply tap them against my hand to knock most of the dirt off, but I don't formally wash them til I am going to peel them. Storing them in November, I noticed that some will start softening come spring. I actually still have some left, though, so some are going on 7 months looking pretty good. The Beauregard didn't last NEARLY as long as the Murasaki. The Murasaki's are beasts and store for incredible lengths of time. I'm done growing Beauregard, because they're too common for cheap in the grocery stores and, in my opinion, inferior in flavor and don't store as well, but to each their own.
Excellent video! I am growing sweet potatoes for the first time this year and I knew absolutely zero of this information. I feel armed and ready now! Thank you!
any tips for those of us with the opposite problem? 😅 i live in florida and i’m not sure how i’d be able to get the cold cure process done
I like your innovative ideas.
Thank you! I'm happy to hear that!
I ordered a set of 4 105qt Sterilite totes to put our sweet potato harvest in, and we only ended up with enough to fill up one of the totes not even 1/4th of the way full LOL. Yes, I already have the triple super phosphate ready for next season, thanks to a half off sale at the local Ace Hardware LOL
Those 105qt containers are perfect for rooting fig cuttings. If you have a spare one, that’s what I recommend! I use the same heat mat and thermostat. 77F is the perfect temp for rooting figs!
Thanks! We will be harvesting our sweet potatoes in about 2 weeks. I will be curing them using your method, as I don't have a green house. Your instructions are, as always, succinct and helpful.
Is it worth saving the leaves for next year or just starting them from the potatoes? I got mine from a seed company and the slips took a long time to root. I was thinking of potting some of the plants and keeping them inside for the winter. I am anxious to see how my raised bed did and I think i will wait till the leaves are brown as we are finally getting the rain they probably will benefit from.
First year growing sweet potatoes; I’m trying Porto Ricos in raised beds. I’d like to try satsumaimo for next year.
Genius idea, I'll follow your steps to the tee, it'll be my first time doing sweet potato, curing is definitely a mandatory process.. have you ever used hay as a growing medium?(Ruth Stout method)
Most hay has been sprayed to kill weeds in the field, it can cause deformity in your plants (leaf curling)and deformed vegetables and be dangerous to your health. Aged Free range chicken manure and rabbit manure is a better choice. Ag depts worldwide are warning against using cow and horse manure too for this reason.
Absolute BEST video on Sweet Potatoes I’ve ever watched! Genius ideas 💡
Thank you! I'm so glad it was helpful!
Thanks. We just dug out first bed & it was a great harvest! We have one more full bed but we are waiting till the last second in hopes that we will get lots more larger ones. So exciting! & thanks for the tip on curing - most make curing seem stressful like if you don’t do it perfectly then it will be a failed harvest. Unfortunately I can’t fully do this method this year but I will probably try it next year bc it’s super smart!
I used this method to cure my sweet potatoes this year. It worked great and they are super sweet and flavorful. Thank you very much!
You're welcome! Glad it was successful!
I’m really hoping you’ll see this. I live in zone 8b and am embarking on growing lots of citrus and avocado trees in pots. I would love to know how you create easy transportation for your 15 gallon pots. Do you have any scooters or other mobility devices you sit them on for easy transport during the winter? I appreciate any guidance you have! Or better yet, would love to see a video on it.
Funny, I just posted a video on this yesterday on my 2nd channel. You can watch it here: ua-cam.com/video/-iVYC2fgwyM/v-deo.html
@@TheMillennialGardener kismet 😊
I haven't grown my sweet potatoes yet, and I never cured them, so this helps a lot. I am in Minnesota, so I was wondering of a good way to cure them. Thanks for the help.
I harvest mine after the first frost and then drive around with them in boxes in the back of my car for a few weeks. They get heated up in my car when my car gets hot in the sun. I haven't had any problems doing it this way. I do Crack my windows slightly.
Great idea!
Thank you so much for this great video because I am just starting to grow my first sweet potatoes so this is very helpful 🙏🏽 so thanks again for sharing 🥳🫶🏾
Wow ! I didn’t know you should keep them in the same location. I keep mine in the same location because that’s where they can grow big and not shade out other plants or invade other plants space. Ha, I was doing it right and didn’t know it. Pretty cool.
He way waaay overspoke any danger of Sweet potatoes overtaking things. I live in deep south US and have grown sweet potatoes most of my 72 years and I have never once had a problem with them coming back. I wouldn't be concerned with it.
@@watthaile2053do you till? Or raised beds?
Just a little more to harvest! I'm going to use your system! Thanks!
Excellent! I plan on harvesting tomorrow, weather permitting. I'll be doing the same thing!
Question! If I cure my sweet potatoes can I keep them in the cool curing location for long-term storage as well? Or is there a specific way to store them to avoid "over curing"? (If that is a thing.)
Sweet potatoes should be kept in a cool, dry place for maximum life. Where you perform the cure, assuming it's in that 55-60 degree range or so, is perfect for long-term storage. They'll last months there as long as they don't get light exposure. Warm + light will cause them to sprout vines and get soft hollow. That's what you want to do when you want to grow new slips, but it's not what you want to do when you want to eat them.
@@TheMillennialGardener Perfect. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the great idea I'm from Minnesota and and this will be a great way to cure my sweet potatoes
You're welcome!
I have an urgent question, I just harvested my sweet potatoes yesterday and when I woke up this morning the container lid was dripping with moisture onto the potatoes, even though I cocked my lid to the side probably even more than you did here. There is a A LOT of condensation built up under the lid and along the sides of the container. Is this too much humidity and moisture? I’ve done exactly as you have and the temperature on the thermostat is correct. Should I take the water jar out for a bit? Or is it okay that the potatoes get a little damp? I would’ve thought this might encourage rot but I don’t know. Please help! Thank you!
Hi. Did you ever get an answer to your question? Did your sweet potatoes turn out ok?
@@sophiesoulsister2222 hey, no I never got an answer back. I ended up taking out the jar of water because it was evidently already humid in the air, and putting it back in after a few days once the natural humidity in the air died down. I also had to take the potatoes out and get a cloth to get rid of the excess moisture, I think if left it then maybe rot would have formed. I have eaten all but one of my sweet potatoes since then, they turned out great! A few had some mould on the skin but once peeled off the inside was fine.
Thank you for the response!! And happy for you they were delicious
You have just educated me on sweet potatoes. Thanks
Please be careful what you put on Sculls to some represent the spirit of death.
Wow! This is amazing! I'm going to save lots of money and have lots of fun doing it in the future. Thank you.